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A challenge to Christians

Submitted by RationalRespons... on October 16, 2009 - 9:09pm.

One of our fans sent a challenge in for the Christians...

Is Christianity a religion with real power or a fraud? If you listen to fundamentalists they clearly believe that they have “real power” at their fingertips. It’s not hard to understand why they believe this. After his resurrection Jesus stated to his disciples that those who follow him shall perform miracles.

Mark 16:15-20 “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; theyshall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.”

So, can you handle serpents? If I give you a glass of poison can you drink it and live? When you lay hands on people that are sick do they recover? When Jesus says “And these signs shall follow them that believe;” he’s talking about everyone that claims to “believe”. There is no “out” clause there. You either perform these miracles or you don’t and he makes the outcome certain for those who can’t.

Let’s go over this again.

1) You have to believe to be saved.

2)Those that believe shall perform these signs: take up serpents, cast out ‘devils’, speak in new tongues, drink poison and live, and lay hands on the sick and they recover.

If you can’t do the things listed in #2 then you don’t really believe. If you don’t really believe then “he that believeth not shall be damned”. Jesus wasn’t making a list of what he wished his followers could do. He made a very clear statement as to what “real believers” ARE able to do. “And these signs shall follow them that believe… and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them…”. Poison anyone?

I’ll be honest, I haven’t exactly been keeping up with the number of people on planet Earth that can perform these miracles but I propose that such a number is quite low and somewhere in the neighborhood of zero. So, if not one of this god’s subjects can perform these miracles then it’s a fraudulent religion having no power.

It is for this reason that I have no other choice but to relegate Christianity into a pile with all of the other Pagan myths and superstitions. If you don't like what I'm saying and want to prove me wrong then produce me one Christian willing to drink cyanide and we can settle the argument.

hi, not that its a good idea, but there are snake handlers....thats what they do. arsnic or sticnine i think, not sure im not one, im an athiest. as for me I drank poison and lived, my parents are athiest also ..... no jesus ....im still here splian that one?

That one is fairly simple. You did not drink enough poison to do the job. Really, people have died from drinking water too fast. It is fairly rare but it does happen.

As far as that bit from the bible, Even taking face value on the existence of an itinerant preacher that none of the contemporary historians noticed, he never said that. That is in no textual source prior to the tenth century. While it is possible that the scribe who made the earliest known copy of the passage could have had an earlier source which is not known, the fact that it turns up only when it does speaks volumes to the idea that it was an addition made much later because it sounded like a good idea. That and the original ending of Mark kind of ended up as a let down.

Also, do you think that if the paramedics in that part of the country were made aware of the addition to the bible, they could tell people in the ambulance on the way to the hospital that that really is not in the bible?

I wouldn't recommend people to "try this at home". Precisely because their fictional god is not real. And I am quite sure MythBusters would say the same.

I would rather challenge people to come up with a universal empirical evidence that is peer reviewed and testable and falsifiable proving that a thought can arise from a non material process. No chance of some dip shit killing themselves needlessly. The only thing that would be hurt is their pride and ego.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."ObamaCheck out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under BrianJames Rational Poet also on twitter under Brianrrs37

OK Brian, if you want to bring the Myth Busters into the matter, then I have a point to make.

The snake handlers live in an area where the rattlers and copperheads are known to have a very weak venom. Also, every video I have seen on youtube of the deal makes it clear that they are using snakes old enough to provide “dry bites” and young enough that they probably don't have enough venom to do all that much damage in the first place.

Don't get me wrong. People have died but it is really a fairly rare thing. If it were common, I fail to see how the belief could have spread in the first place.

I don't expect that we will ever see that one tested but there is one episode where Jamie did let himself get bit by a bunch of spiders to prove that they were not really an issue. I think I will have to email them to see what comes of this.

OK, this one might push farther than Adam and Jamie are willing to go. Still, I find it to be of some interest.

There is a group of people in Appalachia who think that religion compels them to handle venomous snakes. They get together all the time to do exactly that. However, there are a couple of testable issues with that.

The first being that the snakes they use have a very mild venom. This could be tested in a hospital situation where one of them could be specifically injected with venom and crofab is on hand just in case there is a problem.

The second is a bit more complicated. One point is that the snakes I see on youtube videos are small enough that they probably don't have enough venom to matter in any case. The other is that snakes often deliver “dry bites” devoid of actual envenomation. Again, this requires a hospital test but actually getting bit by an Pennsylvania copperhead only to see nothing or at worst a minor problem which is easily treatable would tell the story.

Someone is asking if stars contribute to the light that shines on the earth. Well, it seems to me that if they did not, then we would not even know that they existed. A better question might be along the lines of what contribution do they make to the total irradiation?